Official Sony VAIO F Series i5/i7 owners thread *part 4*

[Undecided84]

ok after waiting a while the laptop was able to turn back on again. it appears every time i open internet explorer the laptop freezes. does anyone know what the problem could be? do you think i should uninstall IE and if so how do i go about doing that? i can't find it listed under "uninstall program".

[QuePasa87]

Have you scanned for infections? (I know you've only owned it for several weeks but it couldn't hurt)

Personally, I'd rather keep IE for Microsoft based sites that aren't friendly with other browsers.

I'd try re-seating the memory and hard drive also. If none of that helps you might try reinstalling your OS like anseio said. If that still doesn't work I'd think it's a hardware issue and begin communications with Sony on a replacement unit.

[Undecided84]

Have you scanned for infections? (I know you've only owned it for several weeks but it couldn't hurt)

Personally, I'd rather keep IE for Microsoft based sites that aren't friendly with other browsers.

I'd try re-seating the memory and hard drive also. If none of that helps you might try reinstalling your OS like anseio said. If that still doesn't work I'd think it's a hardware issue and begin communications with Sony on a replacement unit.

yeah i have scanned for infections and found none. i used avast and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. if i uninstall IE i could always reinstall IE in the future if i ever decided i needed it.

i'm sorry but how do you go about re-seating the memory and hard drive?

[QuePasa87]

yeah i have scanned for infections and found none. i used avast and Malwarebytes' Anti-Malware. if i uninstall IE i could always reinstall IE in the future if i ever decided i needed it.

i'm sorry but how do you go about re-seating the memory and hard drive?

http://www.docs.sony.com/release/VPCF12_series.pdf

Pages 102-106 for memory,

and replacing the HDD: http://www..org/images/Son...eplacement.htm (Credit to Joe Bleau)

The PDF has additional troubleshooting tips to follow.

[duna]

What does it fix?
Battery usage improvement.

Important: before installing this patch, please make sure that VAIO Event Service version 5.1.2.03030 or higher is installed. Edit: Checking in Control Panel > Programs: mine is 5.1.0.11300 so all OK.

No, this is not ok.
5.1.0 is lower than 5.1.2

[mangosango]

Man... part 4 already? Sorry to barge in, but for those who care :

Gaming performance of the F11 *Part 3*
(parts 1 and 2: GAMING PERFORMANCE PART 1, GAMING PERFORMANCE PART 2)

I have an F11 with the Core i7 720QM, nvidia gt330m (and US glossy 1080p screen).

My video card driver version: 258.96
(Update your drivers from Nvidia)

-----------------------

PCSX2 emulator - Final Fantasy XII
Plays just fine @ 48-60 fps (60fps is the target for most emulated games).
Here are the settings for the sound and graphics settings:

Internal render set at 1280x720 (as opposed to the native ps2 resolution of 640x480 or something).

Using pcsx2 0.9.7.3113 with the default plugins.
GSDX - Direct3D 10/11 (hardware) @ 1280x720
SPU2-X - default settings
Rest of the plugins are at their defaults.

VIDEO LINK: Final Fantasy XII

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Grand Theft Auto IV (GTA 4)

Textures - High
Reflection Res - High
Water - High
Shadows - Medium
Texture Filter - Very High
View Distance - 32
Detail Distance - 35
Vehicle Density - 47
Shadow Density - 0
Definition - On

BENCHMARK RESULTS ==
With FRAPS (recording) Avg 27.14 fps
Without FRAPS Avg 41.33 fps

VIDEO LINK: GTA IV Part 1/2, GTA IV Part 2/2

-----------------------

Final Fantasy XIV (14) Online Open Beta

This game in general just doesn't handle populated zones very well. Whenever there are lots of people in one place, the game slows to a crawl.

To illustrate my point about how poor the performance in populated areas is, here are 2 videos of the game on my desktop PC (Athlon II X3 440 + ATI Radeon 5770). Notice that the FPS in the city is similar between my much more capable desktop and the F11 (my desktop handles much better than the F outside of towns):

FFXIV Open Beta on 5770 Part 1/2, FFXIV Open Beta on 5770 Part 2/2

The only way I got this game to look nice and run decently was to OC my GPU to 730/915/1515 (Core/Mem/Shader)

Here is the FPS rundown (and it's not pretty):
WITH OVERCLOCK
15-35 FPS in cities/populated zones (usually around 18 or 20)
25-40 FPS in fields/wilderness (usually around 26-30)

WITHOUT OVERCLOCK
5-20 FPS in cities/populated zones (usually hovers around 15-20)
21-35 FPS in fields/wilderness (usually hovers around 23-24)

WITH FRAPS Recording (and Overclock)
15-30 FPS Everywhere (usually around 25-28 in the fields, 17-20 in the city)

MY RECOMMENDED SETTINGS:
AO/DOF/AA - Off.
Shadows - Low
Textures - Standard
Texture Filtering - Lowest
Buffer Size - Resolution
Dust Effects - Off
Extended Drawing - Off
Physics - On
Character Shadows - On

You can turn down the buffer to 1/2 for reduced visuals and increased performance (not worth the performance gain, IMO, but just so you know).

VIDEO LINK: FFXIV Open Beta - Part 1/2, FFXIV Open Beta - Part 2/2

-----------------------

HAWX -
YouTube - Hawx Gameplay on Sony Vaio F11
YouTube - Hawx Benchmark on Sony Vaio F11

Game is fully playable. During gameplay average of 40fps - rarely ever dips below 30 (only on 1 mission - Typhoon, but that's because it's raining like crazy and you're flying over Tokyo).

The benchmark averages 36fps without fraps (much smoother than when fraps is recording).

More to come later

[Tanis.7x]

ok after waiting a while the laptop was able to turn back on again. it appears every time i open internet explorer the laptop freezes. does anyone know what the problem could be? do you think i should uninstall IE and if so how do i go about doing that? i can't find it listed under "uninstall program".

Control Panel > Programs > Turn Windows Features On/Off. From there, you can disable IE.

You may also want to try redownloading and reinstalling IE from Microsoft's site.

[Joe Bleau]

It does not matter for how long you own the laptop, what matters is the settings you modified or third party cr@p you installed. There are several troublesooting tools in ASSIST > Vaio_Care as well as wizards & help files. Start there.

You say the problem appears with Internet Explorer then the problem must be caused by it, no? Try this search, seems the problems are on several brands of machines: "windows 7" internet explorer freezing computer.

Try downloading the free Firefox or Google Chrome & see if the problem is still there when you surf.

Then, you could check in your Windows 7 Event Viewer, it should tell you what caused the crashing.

If you don't know how to troubleshoot your laptop, the ultimate way to find out if it's a hardware or software problem is to backup all your personal data and/or create a full system image to an external drive & restore your system to the OEM factory state. If all works fine then it's something you did/added to the F's original factory OS.

What is the name of the anti virus you are using as some are known to cause BSOD on Win 7 64-bit.

ok after waiting a while the laptop was able to turn back on again. it appears every time i open internet explorer the laptop freezes. does anyone know what the problem could be? do you think i should uninstall IE and if so how do i go about doing that? i can't find it listed under "uninstall program".

So I just bought a brand new sony F12 laptop a few weeks ago. For some reason every time i turn it on after about 15 minutes the laptop freezes. I have to manually turn it off and then turn it back on again then its fine. Has anyone else have this problem? How do I fix it?

Now it won't even turn on. I'm using a different computer right now. I just bought the laptop two weeks ago.

If I hadn't bought a customized Vaio I would return it.

*****

@ Duna: Good catch, thanks! I was about to install Vaio_Care 6, guess will check if I can find an update to Event Service before.

No, this is not ok. 5.1.0 is lower than 5.1.2

[OoTLink]

The palm rest wear is not due to extreme conditions, I was using my laptop over the summer an average of 6-7 hours a day and the weather was relatively mild here (75 degrees on average). After the first 2 months of having my laptop, I could see a dark spot from certain angles. Now that dark spot is a little more obvious.

Thing is, I'm not a sweaty person, in fact I have pretty dry skin - I don't sweat much, if at all! I think it might just be that the heat is causing the paint to change colors (since that spot in particular gets warmer than the rest of the palm rest on my F11)

[Joe Bleau]

"my hard drive make this squealing/squeaking sound" - That's bad news. Did you bang your laptop while it was turned on? If so, the heads may have touched the platters which are spinning @ 7200 rpm so it would make quite a long scratch.

Both HD Tune & Everest report under SMART; Mechanical Shocks: value BF and Free Fall Event Count: FE. The utilities gives them different labels but it's the same thing. I have 2 Seagate ST9500420AS (also called 7200.4) and one shows 11 mechanical shocks & the other only 2 in Everest. Luckily, they were small & w/o consequences.



You can also use the Error Scan tab in your HD Tune Pro, do a full surface scan, don't select Quick scan. It takes about 1-2 hours for 500GB on the F. One can also check the drive's manufacturer's Support for diagnostic tools. In this case it's a Seagate so check the free: SeaTools for Windows. Or use Windows 7 CHKDSK (Check Disk), or Vaio_Care hardware diagnostics or boot & hit F10 or press ASSIST w/ the F turned off to access Vaio_Hardware Diagnostics before Win 7 boots for a faster scan:



It could also be a bearing problem.

In any case, I would not trust anymore an HDD that makes any abnormal sounds like cliking often, squealing, whining, etc. Backup your data & send it for replacement under warranty even if you knocked it as sometimes manufacturers will replaced a mistreated unit for good faith or Google Page Ranking reasons.

Bad news here!

Last month, my hard drive make this squealing/squeaking sound, and my F froze, except for the cursor/mouse, which continued to respond to my controls.

Then, Windows gave me a message saying explorer.exe has crashed.
Before I could respond, I got a blue screen of death, paired with a buzzing sound coming from the speaker.

After a reboot from the crash, after the VAIO logo, a black screen with a message saying "Operating System not found_" appeared.

I shut off my F again and booted. This time it booted fine. Went on the computer, no files were missing or corrupted.

Until now the exact same process repeated again. All the files are still fine. (I have JoeB's clean install.)


I am using the aftermarket HDD I bought to replace my ty OEM 5400RPM Toshiba. It is the Seagate ST9500420ASG 7200.4 16MB

Same as the ST9500420AS (without the G). The one with the G is the more power efficient version.
Is my hard drive really dying? I've had it for what.. 1 month?

Please shed some light on this. Not gonna loose 237 GB worth of stuff. I already backed up a system image with Win7's default utility, but that's not gaurenteed to work.

Could it be simply a loose SATA connection?

My hard drives read speeds are normal though, almost exactly the same as the speed's before the incident.

HD Tune Pro 4.50 says my HDD's health is OK (green).

-------

Edit:

I have the F116FW (Asian VAIO, bought in Taiwan)
i7-720, 4GB DDR3-1333, GT 330M 1GB VRAM, 1080p Matte (Idk if it's premium)